This has become one of my most cited books. I’ve read it a lot and I’ve used it a lot.
In order to develop a REAL strategy you need to have a definition of the problem you want to respond to, an analysis of the competition and a set of actions to get there. Doing strategy is really hard and requires a great deal of maturity. Conflicts will arise but leaders need to decide.
I think I will keep the three parts of a good strategy forever. Also it contains some great things that will allow me to describe what is going wrong when developing a strategy to solve a problem.
Impact mapping by gojko adcic may be a children’s guide to good strategy
Not miscalculation, bad strategy is the active avoidance of the hard work of crafting a good strategy. One common reason for choosing avoidance is the pain or difficulty of choice. When leaders are unwilling or unable to make choices among competing values and parties, bad strategy is the consequence. A second pathway to bad strategy is the siren song of template-style strategy—filling in the blanks with vision, mission, values, and strategies. This path offers a one-size-fits-all substitute for the hard work of analysis and coordinated action. A third pathway to bad strategy is New Thought—the belief that all you need to succeed is a positive mental attitude.
By the early 2000s, the juxtaposition of vision-led leadership and strategy work had produced a template-style system of “strategic planning.” (Google “vision mission strategy” to find thousands of examples of this template for sale and in use.) The template generally looks like this: The Vision: Fill in your unique vision of what the school/business/nation will be like in the future. Currently popular unique visions are to be “the best” or “the leading” or “the best known.” For example, Dow Chemical’s vision is “To be the most profitable and respected science-driven chemical company in the world.”6 Enron’s vision was “to become the world’s leading energy company.” The Mission: Fill in a high-sounding politically correct statement of the purpose of the school/business/nation. Dow’s mission is “To passionately innovate what is essential to human progress by providing sustainable solutions to our customers.” The Values: Fill in a statement describing the company’s values. Make sure they are noncontroversial. Dow’s values are “Integrity, Respect for People, and Protecting Our Planet.” Enron’s were “Respect, Integrity, Communication and Excellence.” The Strategies: Fill in some aspirations/goals but call them strategies. For example, Dow’s corporate strategies are “Preferentially invest in a portfolio of technology-integrated, market-driven performance businesses that create value for our shareholders and growth for our customers. Manage a portfolio of asset-integrated building block businesses to generate value for our downstream portfolio.” This template-style planning has been enthusiastically adopted by corporations, school boards, university presidents, and government agencies. Scan through these documents and you will find pious statements of the obvious presented as if they were decisive insights.
[A strategy is composed of:] 1. A diagnosis that defines or explains the nature of the challenge. A good diagnosis simplifies the often overwhelming complexity of reality by identifying certain aspects of the situation as critical. 2. A guiding policy for dealing with the challenge. This is an overall approach chosen to cope with or overcome the obstacles identified in the diagnosis. 3. A set of coherent actions that are designed to carry out the guiding policy. These are steps that are coordinated with one another to work together in accomplishing the guiding policy.**
A great deal of strategy work is trying to figure out what is going on. Not just deciding what to do, but the more fundamental problem of comprehending the situation.
Good guiding policies are not goals or visions or images of desirable end states. Rather, they define a method of grappling with the situation and ruling out a vast array of possible actions.
In general, strategic leverage arises from a mixture of anticipation, insight into what is most pivotal or critical in a situation, and making a concentrated application of effort.